The rights of Taiwan

12:00AM BST 26 Apr 2001

THE cause dearest to the heart of the Chinese leadership is the recovery of Taiwan. In recent years, that goal has receded as mainland and island have drifted further apart, the former remaining a Communist dictatorship, the latter becoming a democracy.

Relations with America, the ultimate guarantor of Taiwanese independence, have also taken a turn for the worse. The Clintonian concept of a strategic partnership with China has been redefined by the Bush administration, more realistically, as strategic competition. Both countries are still smarting over this month's spy plane incident. And now the US President has agreed to sell P-3 Orion aircraft and Kidd-class destroyers to Taiwan and to assist it in buying diesel submarines. Yesterday he pledged to "stand steadfast" by the islanders. Beijing has warned that the largest arms sale to Taipei for nearly 10 years could do "devastating damage" to Sino-American ties.

Yet the Chinese have only themselves to blame for this situation. Far from renouncing force as a means of reunification, they have been building up missile and other forces across the Taiwan Strait on the coast of Fujian. A successful amphibious invasion is at present beyond them. But they could cripple the island by blockading its oil imports, or even subject the population to missile attack. To counter the first is the purpose of the submarines. But the European countries that could best supply them, Germany and Holland, have pre-emptively kowtowed to Beijing by ruling out such sales.

European terror of offending China is nothing new: it was apparent during Chris Patten's battle with the mainland while governor of Hong Kong, and has since been demonstrated in the failure to censure Beijing at the UN human rights commission in Geneva. Yet members of the European Union should ask themselves why they are not standing up for a democracy constantly under pressure from an authoritarian bully across the strait. Britain used to argue that its responsibility for Hong Kong prevented an assertive policy towards the mainland. Now, with the colony having reverted to Chinese sovereignty, that excuse has gone, and the old fear of courting Beijing's wrath is revealed in all its nakedness. Washington deserves better of its closest ally.

The Taiwan issue is simple. It is whether a government that oppresses its own people should be allowed forcefully to extend that oppression to an island that has opted for democracy and has no wish for reunification while this yawning political gap endures. Support for the Taiwanese is a litmus test of commitment to self-determination.